Daily Life – Page 4 – The Sandcastle

Social Security

I am officially old. I applied for Social Security yesterday. I still can’t believe how easy it was to do.

I started by filling out their on-line application at ssa.gov. That takes awhile because they ask for a lot of information but it was all stuff I knew so it wasn’t difficult. The only thing I had to look up was what was the last year I worked.

I know, I know. How can I not know the last year I worked? My last job was as a free-lance writer. I wrote as topics occurred to me and stopped when I couldn’t get around well enough to do the research anymore. Why would I want to remember when that was?

Anyway, I filled out the form and sent it on its electronic way.

Last night I got a phone call from a lady at Social Security in Kansas City. She wanted to verify my information and talk about me filing under Dave’s earnings rather than my own. I already knew I wanted to do that since he worked a lot more and earned a LOT more than I did. I took a lot of time off to be an Army wife then raise our daughter in addition to retiring very early. When I did work for pay it was mostly part-time. So my benefits weren’t going to be wonderful if they depended solely on my own earnings. Fortunately, Dave and I have been married more than four times the required ten years for me to qualify to file under his earnings and he told them that back when he filed for his benefits so they already had a record of that.

So, the lady and I talked awhile, then she and Dave talked awhile, then she said she had everything she needed. I don’t even need to go into an office with any of my official documents like Dave did when he applied about six month’s ago. I get to just wait for my first payment to show up in our bank in September. Isn’t today’s technology marvelous?!

TTYL,

Linda

Beds

When my mother was a child, I think she and her twin sister slept in a twin bed. I remember Mom telling me that when one wanted to roll over both had to roll over.

When I was an infant, my father got me a 6-year crib. So, I slept in it for six years. You’d think I’d be embarrassed to be going to school and still sleeping in a crib but I don’t remember that being so and I have memories going back to age two.

At least, I didn’t have to share my crib. Except once. My cousins came to visit after my brothers and I were already asleep. So Mom and Dad tucked me into the the foot of the upper bunk where my brother, Wayne, was asleep at the head. They put my cousin, Karen, who looked a lot like me except she was three years younger than me in my crib across from the bunk beds. When Wayne woke up and looked down at my crib he started screaming, “Mom! Dad! Come quick! Linda shrunk!”

I slept alone until I got married. As a new couple we had a double bed. Which is not quite as wide as two twin beds. In fact it’s about as wide as two cribs. Good thing I had lots of experience sleeping in cribs, huh?

When we bought our first house, a mobile home, it came furnished with a queen sized bed. I felt like royalty.

Now I have a memory foam bed. It doesn’t seem to be helping my memory, though.

TTYL,

Linda

20 mile day

Yesterday we drove from Summerdale, Alabama, to Gulf Shares, Alabama. Short but good day.

We started the day at Rainbow Plantation, an Escapees park where we had been sitting for several days. It was a leisurely start allowing time to sleep late, do our normal morning computer stuff, and take advantage of the park’s book exchange to get five new-to-me books. Check out time was noon and we managed to make that by doing the garbage run and the book exchange after checking out.

While we were parked in front of the office with Dave inside checking out I suddenly realized what was parked in front of us.

Look closer and you see this.

That won’t mean anything to most of you but those of you who participate in the hobby of geocaching will recognize that as a travel bug. A travel bug is usually something you find inside a cache that wants to go to a different cache so you help it move. This one moves without my help but I can go online to geocaching.com and log this find.

While I was taking that picture the owners came out, pleased to find me finding their travel bug. Then they asked if I had looked at their motorhome yet. Sure enough…

Easiest finds I’ve ever made. But harder for others to find because they move a lot. If you happened to be parked at Rainbow Plantation last night, go quick and see if they are still there.

Since we had been parked there for so long, our grocery supplies were seriously depleted. Instead of our usual stop at WalMart, though, we went to Winn Dixie hoping to get Mocha Mix or Coffee Rich. We got lots of food but neither of those.

So we drove across the street to Piggly Wiggly. They had Coffee Rich! In pints. Dave bought TEN of them. We are thawing two and the other eight are in our freezer. I will be able to eat cereal for a long time now.

All that grocery shopping helped us decide it was time for lunch. So we went to Lambert’s Cafe in Foley, Alabama.

This is another Guy’s Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives place. At 2 p.m. parking was challenging. They have several extra long spaces marked bus parking but they were full of cars. So we found a space next to a car using one and a half spaces and backed in next to it leaving our tail end hanging over a curb.

They have activities to help you wait your turn to be seated.

And activites to help you wait your turn once you are seated. This guy is entertaining everyone by throwing hot dinner rolls to anyone who holds up their hands to catch one.

Then they start bringing you food. And more food. And more food.

Here’s the “glass” of Diet Coke they brought Dave.

I ordered chicken fried steak with mashed potatoes and gravy, cottage cheese, and fried apples. When it came the pieces of meat was so large, about 5″ diameter” it hung off the plate where I couldn’t cut it. So I set aside the bowls of cottage cheese and apples to make room for the meat. That didn’t work because of the Pass Arounds. Servers wander the aisles offering more sides. Besides the throwed rolls there are fried okra, black-eyed peas, macaroni with tomatoes, fried potatoes with onions, apple butter and sorghum for your rolls. Before I could get my meat moved further onto my plate it looked like this:

It took me two large take-out containers and a go-cup to get out of that place. Dave had a hamburger and potato salad and ate all his. Sometimes, I don’t understand that man; how could anyone pass up all those goodies?

Then we went to Gulf Shores, Alabama, to the Gulf Shores museum. A small but powerful place.

I learned a lot about bar pilots but the best stuff was about hurricanes. We watched video taken by professional storm trackers of hurricane Ivan hitting Gulf Shores. I got so emotionally overloaded I had to leave without seeing all the exhibits. Powerful, powerful stuff.

Then we drove to Gulf State Park wondering if we would get a site since it is Spring Break here for a lot of families. While Dave was in the office trying to register us I took this picture.

No they don’t really pack in the people like that. Those units are in the storage space across from the office. It gives you an idea of how popular this park must be, though, doesn’t it? There’s another row just behind those, too.

To give you an idea of the actual spacing withing the park, here’s the units parked on each side of as as seen through our windows.

Look at all that sunshine! Makes you warm just looking, doesn’t it? In reality the high in Mobile was 61 degrees so people were wearing sweatshirts and jackets but that’s a LOT better than what they are having in Minnesota now.

It did get a little warm in here, though, when Dave plugged in the electricity. Somehow the toaster oven got turned on after we unplugged from the previous park. So it started heating when we plugged into this park. While it was still packed for travel! We shove a flexible silicone bowl sideways into it to keep it from rattling while traveling. The white line on the red bowl is where it was pressed against the heating element.

Fortunately, I heard odd crackling sounds coming from the galley and checked that out before this turned into an actual fire. That white line is ash, though. They say most RVs have a kitchen “event” at some time. I hope this was ours so we never have another one. The toaster oven is now unplugged.

TTYL,

Linda

Sofa

This is the sofa that came with our Winnebago View:

When the slide is in the aisle with my shoes in it looks like this:

When the slide is opened out it looks like this:

And when the sofa is opened in the process of turning it into a bed it looks like this:

I have now “slept” on that bed for six months. But it has never been comfortable. We added a memory foam pad to it–nope, still not comfortable. We added a bed bridge down the center to help fill in the crack–nope, still not comfortable.

Finally, we decided it need to be replaced. After much discussion we decided to replace it with a plywood platform to hold a Tempurpedic mattress. That’s the brand of mattress we had in our house and I slept better on it than I had on anything else in years.

Yesterday PPL Motor Homes in Houston, Texas, built me a new bed using as their model a daybed style where you just throw lots of cushions on it when you want to use it as a sofa. Using all the pillows we already had, it now looks like this:

When the slide is closed the aisle is two inches narrower.

But when the slide is open, the aisle stays wide all the time because this bed doesn’t open and close. So, when I get out of bed my feet land on the carpet instead of the cold tile.

Plus, now it takes much less effort to be ready to go to bed at night or hit the road in the morning. And during the night last night the sofa mechanism did not poke me. And this morning my hips did not hurt. I am, once again, a happy camper.

TTYL,

Linda

ps. If you know anyone in the market for a new sofa, PPL has ours for sale. It is UltraLeather which is very soft to the touch. We really liked it as a sofa; just not as a bed for someone with a body like mine.

Ordinary Days

Somehow when we moved into an RV and hit the road, I think we thought every day would be extraordinary. Not true. There are many mundane days. We’ve been having a string of them. So here’s a list of ordinary.

Thursday we went to the UPS Store to pay for the boxes they packed and shipped for us. They put our five boxes of things into four boxes so we’ll have more sorting to do in our storeroom some day. It cost a lot to ship and insure all those things but the truck scale said the result is being 30 pounds under our maximum weight which is very good news. And the rain held off until we were leaving there which was also good news.

We drove to Houston in the rain and went to PPL Motor Homes to see if they could do the modifications we want anytime soon. They said, “Yes, we can start tomorrow morning.” But we have the hitch work scheduled for tomorrow to which they replied, “Good. Monday is better.” More good news.

Then we went to Gallery Furniture to buy a new Tempurpedic mattress. PPL is going to take out our sofa bed and install a platform for the Termpurpedic which we will then use as a day bed. The hope is I will begin sleeping well again which will increase our happiness since I get grumpy when I don’t sleep well. I’m also hoping it will decrease my backaches so I can do more things again. The mattress I want is on sale. It’s less than half the price of my second choice. How much good news can we get?

Then we went to the WalMart where Smitty’s said many of there customers overnight. Nope, not allowed there. So we went to the next closest WalMart. Nope, not allowed there either. So we went back to PPL where they have electrical hookups available for their customers and spent the night. That started out as bad news but turned good since the electical hookup is free.

Friday we spent all day at Smitty’s getting the hitch work done. Well, almost done. They didn’t have the right wheel for the upright post. The one they need will be in about 3:30 Tuesday afternoon. It’s a good thing we don’t have anyplace we need to be right now.

When we got back to PPL someone had moved into the space we’d used the night before. We forgot to leave our orange cone that says this space is taken. We were given our choice of three less official spaces. The first one was on wet grass that wasn’t close to level so we passed on it. The second one had too much voltage coming from the electrical hookup so our Electrical Management System disconnected us to protect our electronics. So we took the third one. It’s outside the range of their security cameras but the electrical hookup worked.

Saturday we went back to the scale to see how much weight Smitty’s hitch fix had added. We are now 140 pounds overweight. Let’s hope the replacement bed weighs less than the sofa bed.

Then we went to Target to get new sheets for the new bed since we don’t have any that will fit it. We also bought a bed skirt because skirting the new bed will weigh less than building cupboards under it. We bought a tailored skirt which made Dave happy since he thought we’d have to get ruffled.

Then we went to the new KFC/Taco Bell for lunch. They let us pay today.

Then we went to WalMart to get lightweight storage drawers to put under the new bed. We need these because PPL is going to remove some drawers from our kitchen to add a supplemental fresh water tank so we don’t have to go fill so often when we are parking long term. OK, long term for us is more than four days; wanna make something of it?

Then we went back to PPL. While we were out someone left one of the regular spots so we took it. We are now back under the eye of the guy monitoring the security cameras and we have an electrical hookup of the proper voltage.

Today, Sunday, we went to the 59 Diner for lunch. Cool place. But so many hard surfaces echoing the noise that we could barely hear the 50s music. Good burgers and malt, though.

Then we picked up our new mattress. Tonight we’ll put it on top of the sofa bed which will make for a very tall bed but we decided it was important to have it on hand when they start the remodel tomorrow. Besides, it was a lot more sane to dive up there in today’s light traffic than in tomorrow evening’s rush hour traffic.

We also went to Flying J up there to get propane. We didn’t get it, though. They are out until tomorrow morning’s delivery. Dave “thinks” we have enough for tonight. Hopefully the furnace won’t give up before morning. Our comforters will keep us warm overnight but we don’t get to stay in bed until the outside temperatures warm up the inside–we have work to be done. Exciting work.

TTYL,

Linda

ps. For those who care, Florida has been added to the public park camping spreadsheets.